My Bipolar Symptoms Aren’t Your Symptoms: I’m More Bipolar Than You

Posted by Natasha Tracy | Sep 24, 2010

If you’ve been reading me for a while, you’re probably familiar with the symptoms I typically experience as a bipolar:

Fatigue
Sadness / depression / tearing
Hypersomnia
Anhedonia
Lack of motivation / concentration
Slowness in thinking
Thoughts of death
Decreased need for sleep
Excessive speed talking / thinking
Increased productivity

Each symptom depending on the mood of the moment (blue being depression, yellow being hypomania).

However, did you know that someone’s list might look like this:

Irritability
Weight loss
Insomnia
Restlessness. agitation
Feelings of guilt
Indecisiveness
More goal-directed activity
Spending sprees
Inflated self-esteem

That is totally different from my list, and yet we’re still both bipolar. The diagnosis “bipolar” is more of a big-tent thing. It’s the clumping of people with group of symptoms into a group called bipolar, but each person in the group is still unique.

Is Multiple Personality Disorder Real? – Dissociative Identity Disorder

Posted by Natasha Tracy | Sep 23, 2010

Since Sybil was published in 1974 I think people have been fascinated by multiple personality disorder, now known as dissociative identity disorder or DID. We see dissociative identity disorder on TV and in movies fairly frequently. I didn’t kill her, my alternate personality did.

And yet many people, doctors included, feel that the mental illness doesn’t really exist. I’m fascinated by someone having a disorder that the medical community can’t even agree exists (although keep in mind, dissociative identity disorder is in the DSM-IV).

I admit to having no idea either way and being terribly uneducated on the subject. Luckily for me, there is a new Blogger Holly Gray at HealthPlace that writes on just such issues in her blog Dissociative Living.

Hypomanic Morning Means A Devastating Afternoon

Posted by Natasha Tracy | Aug 25, 2010

This is not of the quality you typically find here. Sorry.

I knew I was hypomanic because yesterday I couldn’t sleep.

Not sleeping. Waking multiple times during the night. That’s hypomania.

I’m sleeping too little, eating too little, producing too much and feeling too OK; that’s hypomania. It makes you brilliant and insightful and creative and magical. It also makes me completely fucked up.

The hypomania is probably from being on Pristiq and Welbutrin together. That’s a long story.

Newly-Diagnosed Bipolar – What to Do

Posted by Natasha Tracy | Aug 13, 2010

One of the things that happens because I write about bipolar disorder so much, is that people ask me a lot of questions about what they should do with their bipolar treatment. I understand this. People feel like they don’t know what to do. And often people just don’t have a good relationship with their doctor/psychiatrist.

No One Can Make Mental Illness Treatment Decisions But You

The thing is, I can’t tell you what to do with your mental illness treatment. I can give you information, I can try to help, I can suggest reliable, mental health resources, but you have to make the treatment decision. It’s a scary thing I know. I still hate it myself.

And the people who have it the toughest are the ones who have just been diagnosed with bipolar disorder or another mental illness. So here’s what I suggest you do if you’ve just been diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

How long do side-effects last? When will medication work?

Posted by Natasha Tracy | Jul 27, 2010

A common question bipolars and depressives ask is about the duration of side-effects and delay for effective treatment. These are completely reasonable and understandable questions. unfortunately, the answers aren’t great...

Bipolar Disorder and Remission

Posted by Natasha Tracy | Jul 25, 2010

I’m not sure that remission is something we will all get to enjoy, as bipolars. And the remission from depression, the remission from hypomania, the remission from bipolar we do experience seems to be a very watered-down version of the lives we want, the lives we deserve and certainly the lives we’re promised by doctors and treatments. So if remission isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, what is remission in bipolar disorder?

What Happens When Your Doctor Gives Up On You?

Posted by Natasha Tracy | Jul 19, 2010

I have had two doctors give up on my bipolar disorder (mostly depression) treatment. One almost a decade ago, and one just a couple of months ago. I didn’t take the most recent doctor abandonment all that well, as I’ve mentioned. In fact, if I saw the woman today, I’d still want to call her a cunt. An unfeeling, malpracticing, cold-hearted cunt. It seems I’m still a little upset about it.

A Doctor Giving Up on You is Unacceptable

But regardless as to my personal feelings about this woman, I feel that a doctor dismissing a patient without referral, medication, treatment or care, is unacceptable. It leaves the ill person with few visible options outside of suicide. A depression, suicidal person with no options. Peachy. These doctors are killing people through their own ignorance.

So, what should you do if your doctor gives up on your treatment? (You know, other than call them nasty names online, which I heartily recommend. It’s cathartic. HealthyPlace isn’t a fan of such things, however.)

Getting Off Pristiq – Or Not

Posted by Natasha Tracy | Jul 7, 2010

A couple of posts ago I talked about getting off of the antidepressant, Pristiq. I just thought you might like to know I was unsuccessful at getting off the final 50mg of Pristiq. I stopped taking the final Pristiq pill while increasing the antidepressant, Welbutrin and fell entirely apart in withdrawal. I became a swamp of tears, echos of choking sobs and a rainforest (?) of suicidality.

Yeah, so I gave into the withdrawal and just took the Pristiq again. Ah…failure. Failure getting on antidepressants, failure getting off antidepressants, and failing to get better. Sheesh. That’s quite a lineup.

Drugs are bad. Just say no. Or ow. Or please god stop.

Or that might be just me.

How To Get Off Pristiq or Reduce Pristiq

Posted by Natasha Tracy | Jun 26, 2010

Now I’m not a doctor, in fact, I don’t even play one on TV, but I wanted to share a little about me and how I’m handling getting off of, or at least reducing, Pristiq.

Please also read: When to Get Off Antidepressants with Bipolar Disorder

Antidepressant Pristiq – Easy On, Not-So-Easy Off

I’ve been talking the antidepressant Pristiq (desvenlafaxine) for months and it doesn’t seem to be doing much, but honestly, the withdrawal from Pristiq is so bad I didn’t want to attempt getting off of it. As you might know, Pristiq is a metabolite of Effexor and Effexor, another antidepressant, is also a nightmare to get off of. If I would miss a Pristiq dose by even a few hours I would become suicidally depressed. Really. No joke.

No Taper Strategy for Pristiq

So getting off of Pristiq wasn’t on my short list of fun things to do. There is no taper strategy for Pristiq as it only comes in 50 mg and 100 mg tablets and you cannot cut them.